Bush's final address

Yes, it was nauseating. It was like taking a bottle of ipecac. Yet, I felt I had to watch President George W. Bush's last public address. The funny thing is I could've written that for him. Everyone who has followed his presidency knew what he was going to say. Bush has always tried to paint himself as a poorly understood tough guy who was never afraid to make decisions. This is exactly what he said in his address. He also had to tell us that the world is a different and dangerous place. Finally, somewhere in the speech he had to give advice to the incoming president. He had to say something about not losing one's nerve because this has been a theme of this president for the last five years.

I wish I could tell you that President Bush said something new. He didn't. I might go so far as to say he wouldn't. For the last three years President Bush has been on autopilot. He had stayed the course. Now, was no time for him to change his rhetoric and he didn't. Tonight ends an eight week media blitz that President Bush and his administration clumsily performed. It was their attempt to rewrite history. Almost everyone was involved including former officials like Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer and Andy Card.

For some reason, I don't think that George Bush and his top administration officials will fade off into the sunset. These neoconservatives understand that history is written by the winners. Therefore, I would not be surprised to continue to see George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove and a few others continue this "charm" offensive. They're going to continue to talk up the "great" things that George W. Bush has accomplished. Look for one or two of the Bush insiders to become regulars on one of the Sunday morning talk shows.



From NYT:

President Bush defended his two terms in office during a farewell address from the White House on Thursday evening and conceded that he “experienced setbacks” over a tumultuous eight years. But he argued that he kept the country safe following Sept. 11, 2001.

“There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions, but there can be little debate about the results,” Mr. Bush said. “America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil.”

The president spoke to the nation from the East Room of the White House before an audience of nearly 200 people, including family, friends and members of the Cabinet. He also invited about 50 people whom he had met at some point in his presidency, many of whom were parents of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan or families members of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (more... )

Hear a Great Public Radio Program - Looking Back At the Past Week

On The Media takes a look at the past weeks events, focusing on the election, the future of the Republican Party, and how the media covered the stories.

Topics include: The Obama victory, Studs Terkel's work, Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy...and how Karl Rove & The Republican Party carried on the Atwater tradition, The civil war in the Republican Party, and other interesting topics. I was going to post just one or two segments, but realized how much I liked the entire show this week. Listen to the program below.


Mp3 link

See all the topics from this week from the On the Media website.

Hypocrite Karl Rove On Tim Kaine's Experience

You can't be a valid VP candidate if the only experience you have is being the mayor of a small town and then Governor for only a few years. That's what king-maker Karl Rove said three weeks ago on "Face The Nation" about Virginia's Tim Kaine, when he was on Obama's short list...

Watch for yourself... It's truly unbelievable.



But now all of a sudden, Palin (with her one full year of experience as a Governor) is more experienced than Obama and even Joe Biden according to these fruitcakes.

Rovian Republicans and their double standards.

Judge Rules That Bush Aides Are Not Immune From Subpoenas

From Crooks & Liars

Although this does not necessarily mean that they must testify. I took this as meaning that Miers and Bolten must at least attend hearings, and provide all of the documents that they can provide.

This will surely go to the Court of Appeals, and onto the Supreme Court.

An Interview With Scott McClellan

Source Page w/ transcript

McClellan agrees to testify before House Judiciary Committee regarding the Plame leak.

Chairman Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

From The Gavel

Chairman Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove
May 22nd, 2008 by Jesse Lee
From the Judiciary Committee:


Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s case. Yesterday, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee’s previous requests.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers said. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters.”

Separately, Chairman Conyers recently received a letter from DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) indicating that the office has opened an investigation into allegations of selective prosecution of Siegelman and others.

IT'S ABOUT TIME.

Valerie Plame Comes Out Swinging in New Memoir

Review by Chuck Leddy
Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2007

When former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's identity was revealed by columnist Robert Novak in The Washington Post, she found herself at the center of a political and media maelstrom. Novak's July 14, 2003, column appeared a week after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had attacked President Bush for faulty intelligence claims prior to the Iraq invasion.

Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece contradicted Bush's contention that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure yellowcake uranium (used for developing nuclear weapons) from Niger. Wilson himself had gone to Niger the year before to investigate these claims and had found them baseless. Instead of answering Wilson directly, the White House went into attack mode.

Plame gets her book title from Karl Rove's assertion that Joseph Wilson's wife was "fair game." Plame meticulously describes the "smear campaign" orchestrated from the vice president's office intended to discredit her husband. Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, revealed Plame's identity to Novak and other media members, leading to Libby's indictment and a 30-month prison sentence. No charges were brought against Cheney or Rove, and on July 2 of this year President Bush used his executive power to commute Scooter Libby's 30-month prison sentence.

Plame, who worked on nuclear nonproliferation while at the CIA, remains disillusioned with both the White House and the media: "I believed in our democratic institutions," writes Plame, "I believed that the truth would prevail, but I would soon find out that in Washington, the truth is not always enough." Ironically, Plame's book seems to support the Bush administration's basic claim that Saddam's Iraq was a real threat. She describes pre-war Iraq as "dangerous and erratic," although she contends the White House oversold dubious intelligence to the public.

Plame admits to being shocked when she heard President Bush make the Niger yellowcake claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, and while watching Secretary of State Colin Powell's televised presentation to the UN regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD): "I had been tracking Iraqi WMD efforts carefully for some time and the facts I knew simply did not match up with what Powell had just presented." Plame explains in great detail exactly why these pre-war intelligence claims were unreliable, despite being trumpeted by the White House as some sort of "slam dunk" case for war. Plame had a front-row seat on both the politicization of pre-war intelligence and White House efforts to stem post-invasion criticism.

Plame describes pervasive efforts to shut her and her husband up. Plame labels it "classic Karl Rove": "Their tactics would have made Joseph McCarthy proud: fearmongering, defamation of character, shameless disregard for the truth, and distortions of reality." Indeed, Plame's book was reviewed by the CIA prior to its publication, and she hasn't been allowed to disclose some of the relevant facts, which the CIA deems classified. Plame wonders whether her book, like her formerly covert CIA status, has been compromised because of political imperatives coming from the White House. Readers may be left thinking, "it wouldn't exactly be the first time."

Exhausted from court battles and a seemingly-endless smear campaign, Plame packed up her belongings and left Washington earlier this year, moving with her husband and two kids to Santa Fe "We had told the truth and tried to live honorably," Plame writes in her tale's final paragraph. The fact that her story ends in a symbolic retreat says something worrisome about our nation. Valerie Plame Wilson can be viewed as a canary in the proverbial coal mine, and her book reads like a grim testament to the noxious atmosphere of our current politics.

Related Links

Audio Report From NPR

MSNBC Report... including the CIA's effort to redact much of the book.

Coverage from Bradblog, including video from a recent 60 Minutes Interview.

Cheney Implicated in Plame Leak

New Documentary - Cheney's Law

A Roundup of the Weeks Events

Hear discussion and analysis of the weeks events from the On Point Public radio program, for Friday, August 17.

Topics include: The Utah Mine Disaster, the Stock Market (The same stock market that Bush & Co. wanted to put your social security money into) & the Subprime lending fiasco, Karl Rove, Iran, The Padilla Case, Iraq & More.

Listen Here (choose player option at top)

PBS Report Shows How Republicans Target Minorities For Voter Suppression

The Report Details The Republican Scheme Called "Caging"

Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias Also Speaks Out

See Report (Click On Video)



This is why Karl Rove is feeling the heat and now wants to get out of the kitchen. It's also the reason behind the Bush Administrations refusal to hand over e-mails and other documents requested by Congress as part of the investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys and other activities by Bush & Co. Luckily, Congressional leaders have announced that the investigations of Rove and the White House will continue.